US Bureau of Economic Analysis: Gov’t Pay is About Twice Private Sector

US Bureau of Economic Analysis: Gov’t Pay is About Twice Private Sector

By Rocky Vega

08/13/10 Reykjavik, Iceland — Recent research out of the US Bureau of Economic Analysis confirms what other analyses have shown… and we’ve come to expect. Government workers are now compensated an average of more than $120,000, or about twice as much as the average private sector worker, who receives about $60,000.

According to Newsmax:

“For the past nine consecutive years, federal employees have received higher increases in salary and benefits on the average compared to nongovernment workers, according to a USA Today analysis.

“Chris Edwards, a budget analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, said changes need to be made when other employees have seen their salaries in a holding pattern or slashed. “Can’t we now all agree that federal workers are overpaid and do something about it?” he said.

“Civil servants received salaries with benefits of $123,049 in 2009 on average compared to employees at private companies making $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.”

Over nearly a decade, the incentive for job seekers to choose productive work in the private sector over the often better rewarded, and potentially less demanding, public sector has been dwindling. Likewise, as government jobs have become more popular its ranks have swollen and put further strain on the remaining productive taxpayers… not exactly a virtuous cycle.

You can read more details in Newsmax coverage of government workers earning twice as much as their private counterparts. http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/federal-government-Workers-Twice-Private-Counterparts/2010/08/11/id/367205

Best,

Rocky Vega,
The Daily Reckoning

Rocky Vega is a regular contributor to The Daily Reckoning. Previously, he was founding publisher of UrbanTurf and RFID Update, which he operated from Brazil, Chile, and Puerto Rico, and associate publisher of FierceFinance. He specialized in direct marketing at MBI, facilitated MIT Sloan School of Management programs, and has been featured on CBS. Vega graduated with honors from Harvard University, where he was on the board of Let’s Go Publications and directed business programs involving McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, and Harvard Business School faculty. He is also enrolled at the Stockholm School of Economics.

http://dailyreckoning.com/us-bureau-of-economic-analysis-govt-pay-is-about-twice-private-sector/